Film Archive

  • “My favorite scene is the one when the bald guy gets killed.” – Dave Smith What a miserable, boring slog this film is. What a senseless, inert and strange experience. […]

    Alien 3

    “My favorite scene is the one when the bald guy gets killed.” – Dave Smith What a miserable, boring slog this film is. What a senseless, inert and strange experience. […]

    Continue Reading...

  • Movies used to be better. That does not mean old movies are uniformly perfect. It does not mean movies can be made the same way they used to be. You […]

    Aliens

    Movies used to be better. That does not mean old movies are uniformly perfect. It does not mean movies can be made the same way they used to be. You […]

    Continue Reading...

  • Stoker is an extended, misguided homage to one of Hitchcock’s, or anyone’s, finest films, Shadow of a Doubt. Both films are about how the approach of a distant Uncle Charlie […]

    Stoker

    Stoker is an extended, misguided homage to one of Hitchcock’s, or anyone’s, finest films, Shadow of a Doubt. Both films are about how the approach of a distant Uncle Charlie […]

    Continue Reading...

  • Carrie is a funny and frightening film.  Brian De Palma, the director, turns Stephen King’s novel, itself a female-dominated Rage (King, 1974), into a semi-satiric teen opera without any of […]

    Carrie

    Carrie is a funny and frightening film.  Brian De Palma, the director, turns Stephen King’s novel, itself a female-dominated Rage (King, 1974), into a semi-satiric teen opera without any of […]

    Continue Reading...

  • Notable characters Tom Welles (P.I., nominal hero): is an edgy average man; usually speaks in a somnambulant monotone when not overly and self-righteously indignant; smokes behind his wife’s back; went […]

    8mm

    Notable characters Tom Welles (P.I., nominal hero): is an edgy average man; usually speaks in a somnambulant monotone when not overly and self-righteously indignant; smokes behind his wife’s back; went […]

    Continue Reading...

  • Red Line 7000 (1965) runs out of gas before it starts. The story is soap—love and death among the beautiful racecar drivers.  The cast, mostly comprising then-unknowns, is stiff.  The interactions between […]

    Red Line 7000

    Red Line 7000 (1965) runs out of gas before it starts. The story is soap—love and death among the beautiful racecar drivers.  The cast, mostly comprising then-unknowns, is stiff.  The interactions between […]

    Continue Reading...

  • We should be in the golden age of cinematic imagination, shouldn’t we? Computers should have unlocked the visual genius of dozens, maybe hundreds of filmmakers, who astonish us with incredibly […]

    Alien

    We should be in the golden age of cinematic imagination, shouldn’t we? Computers should have unlocked the visual genius of dozens, maybe hundreds of filmmakers, who astonish us with incredibly […]

    Continue Reading...

  • It’s not hard to see why the pornographers Kiyoshi Kurosawa was working for were none too pleased with his output. While it fits the parameters of the soft-core material – […]

    Kandagawa Pervert Wars

    It’s not hard to see why the pornographers Kiyoshi Kurosawa was working for were none too pleased with his output. While it fits the parameters of the soft-core material – […]

    Continue Reading...

  • Pre-dating the revisionist westerns we know and love, Ride Lonesome is that rare thing — a cheap chamber western shot in CinemaScope in Lone Pine, California, starring Randolph Scott.  Basically, it’s a […]

    Ride Lonesome

    Pre-dating the revisionist westerns we know and love, Ride Lonesome is that rare thing — a cheap chamber western shot in CinemaScope in Lone Pine, California, starring Randolph Scott.  Basically, it’s a […]

    Continue Reading...

  • Breaking into the movies, getting to actually do that for a living means, for many artists, doing whatever work you can get. In America, that generally entails that you make […]

    The Excitement of the Do Re Mi Fa Girl

    Breaking into the movies, getting to actually do that for a living means, for many artists, doing whatever work you can get. In America, that generally entails that you make […]

    Continue Reading...